The Beginning
by timelordsdaleksandsherlockohmy
Summary: Gabi is a quack, whose job it is to fix quacks, and really who better to fix a quack than a quack? Point is she's got practically nothing in common with Bruce Wayne, yet the two are connected in ways unimaginable. And fate's only getting started...
1. Prologue

_Prologue_

_June 26, 1983 – _**The Gotham Times**

_**Gotham's Finest Patrons Fall  
><strong>_**By Joseph Sherlock  
><strong>_Staff Editor  
><em>**Gotham City **– In a shocking twist of events, Doctor Thomas Wayne and his wife, Martha, Gotham's finest patrons, were found shot to death in the alley behind the downtown Prévost Theater. Found in obvious distress mourning over their bodies was 8-year old Bruce Wayne.  
>Gotham City Police Department suspect they have captured the culprit but, as of yet, refuse to release his name or age. Sources confirm, however, that the shooting was the result of a mugging. The man in question was found with Doctor Wayne's wallet on his person. It is unclear why the Wayne's left the opera production of <em>Die Fledermaus<em> so early in the first place or why they, in fact, chose to exit the theater onto what is generally known as Crime Alley. "It's a mystery," said Commissioner Loeb. "No one in their right mind goes there at night. That's the most dangerous spot in the entire city."  
>The city remains in shock over the deaths of the city's most famous and beloved philanthropists. Already, Gotham's wealthiest are planning a memorial service for tomorrow night in honor of the Wayne's. The deceased leave behind an eight-year old son, Bruce, who is, upon reaching age, to inherit the legendary Wayne Enterprises and its vast amounts of wealth. For now, however, the boy's future is unknown…<p>

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><p><em>September 2, 1983 <em>– **Gotham Tribune**

_**Clear Custody, Unclear Future  
><strong>_**By Marla Stevens  
><strong>_Staff Writer  
><em>**Gotham City** – The court meetings are over for young Bruce Wayne, future heir to the Wayne fortune. Master Wayne will continue to inhabit Wayne Manor with the old Waynes' butler, Alfred Pennyworth, who is to retain custody of the boy. Doctor Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed two months ago in Crime Alley, a part of Gotham's seedy underbelly by criminal Joe Chill. Mr. Chill has been convicted of the crime and now waits in Gotham County to be sentenced. After months of investigation into the child's personal life, at the request of Mr. Pennyworth and Doctor Thompkins of Gotham General and with the acquiescence of Bruce, custody has temporarily been given to the butler…

* * *

><p><em>October 17, 1984<em>** - Gotham Tribune**

_**Flames of Tragedy**_**  
>By Melinda Braunwarth<br>**_Staff Writer  
><em>**Gotham City – **Late this afternoon, a townhouse in Gotham's upper downtown was consumed by flames. Everything was reduced to ashes but for a six-foot by four-foot closet-like structure made out of lead. Everything within the structure remained intact: an assortment of young girl's clothing and dolls. Sources have confirmed that the townhouse belonged to the beloved Doctor Leslie Thompkins. Though she was said to have a four-year old daughter, only the remains of the late Doctor were found. Gotham's finest have, as of yet, to unravel the mystery of the fire and the intact closet…

* * *

><p><em>December 12, 1984 <em>– **The Gotham Times**

**Local Shorts – **_**Missing Child Recovered  
><strong>_**By Karl Kennedy  
><strong>_Freewriter  
><em>**Gotham City **– Previously missing Gabrielle Thompkins, daughter of recently deceased Leslie Thompkins, has been found alive and well at a local private Pre-Kinder to 12th Grade boarding school. The mystery has yet to be solved of where she was the day her mother's house burned down or how she ended up in the school, which refuses to cooperate with journalists. Gotham PD remains unconcerned. Doctor Thompkins left it perfectly clear in her will that the girl should immediately be placed into the custody of one Alfred Pennyworth…

* * *

><p><em>May 20, 1995 <em>– **The Gotham Times**

**Education – **_**Valedictorian Victory Curiosity  
><strong>_**By Tyler Utgaard  
><strong>_Staff Writer  
><em>**Gotham City **– In an unusual twist, a local high school graduate has opted to attend our local Gotham University. While not a strange event in itself for most high school graduates, this situation is above the norm. Gabrielle Thompkins, daughter of the late Doctor Leslie Thompkins, who died in a tragic fire eleven years ago, is not your average student. Valedictorian of her class, she has decided to forgo her acceptances and scholarships to a number of ivy-league schools in order to enter the university as a freshman. The attractive seventeen-year old is already enrolled in an Advanced Honors Program at GU. When asked about her peculiar choice, she said, "You know? I just don't want to leave home. So many of my friends just couldn't wait to get out of here throughout high school. I never felt like that. My roots are here. Gotham is my home. It's in my blood…."

* * *

><p><em>February 6, 2005 <em>– **Gotham Inquirer**

_**Wayne Hottie Back From the Dead  
><strong>_**Candee Cadler  
><strong>The headline says it all, ladies and gentlemen! You've got it right! Bruce Wayne, heir to the billions of Wayne Enterprises, is back after going missing for seven years, and he is hotter than ever ! Just look at that build, ladies! Make you wish we got him without a shirt, doesn't it? Declared dead two years ago, his entire fortune, as stated in his will, was left to the Wayne butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Poor Al. Doesn't look like he'll see another penny. We still haven't been able to get a comment from Mr. Wayne, but don't worry, readers! We're _this_ close!

* * *

><p><em>April 7, 2005 <em>– **Gotham Daily**

_**Narrows Lost  
><strong>_**By Carla Stadelmann  
><strong>_Staff Editor  
><em>**Gotham City **– Following the violent fight between the Gotham Police Department and the insane criminals of Arkham Asylum, the Narrows have been lost…

* * *

><p><em>November 11, 2005 <em>– **Gotham Inquirer**

_**Clown in Prison, Bat the Bad Guy  
><strong>_**By Ashley Bertinelli  
><strong>You heard it right, girls! I hate to be the one to break the news, but that muscular dude behind the bat mask is the bad guy. Gotham City cops have confirmed the rumor. The good news? The Joker is behind bars…

* * *

><p><em>January 4, 2006 <em>– **Gotham Daily**

**Real Estate** – _**Wayne Manor Rebuilt  
><strong>_**By Patrick Shepard  
><strong>_Staff Writer  
><em>**Gotham City** – After the embarrassing accident early last year when drunk playboy Bruce Wayne burned down his manor, Wayne Manor has finished being rebuilt. Having moved in again, Mr. Wayne agreed with Gotham Daily to a photo shoot of the manor. The following two pages display the old fashioned, new splendor of the mansion. As you will see, like his ancestors before him, Mr. Wayne spared no expense…

* * *

><p><em>February 26, 2006 <em>– **The Gotham Times**

_**Apartment Fire  
><strong>_**By Cassandra Williams  
><strong>_Staff Editor  
><em>**Gotham City **– Early this morning, the shady Monroe Apartments building burst into flames. This follows a series of apartment building fires throughout the year, and authorities are beginning to suspect the same pyromaniac might be behind all of them. Whoever is behind it continues to use an extremely flammable chemical that prevents the fire from being put out…


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Bruce was buttoning his left sleeve at the cuff when he walked into the kitchen, distracted enough not to look up. "Alfred," he called again. Hearing the shuffling noises coming from the open refrigerator, he opened his mouth to speak but was cut off.

"Hey! Finally! Someone other than that stuffy old man... Could you tell me where you keep the pudding?" Too surprised to reply, he stared as a head popped out from behind the open refrigerator door. A pair of jade-colored eyes watched him with an expression of half-surprise, half-amusement. The head, covered in brown curls, cocked to the side, and the head's lips curved upwards into a bemused smile. "There's a lot of junk in here," she explained almost apologetically. "Don't worry about it though. It's probably hidden somewhere behind the spinach. Yuck." The head flashed its teeth at him once more before disappearing again behind the door.

Still confused, Bruce was about to call for Alfred again when the woman started muttering to herself. He narrowed his eyes towards her. "It's probably behind the...nope. You know," She seemed to be addressing him now, "Alfred used to hide it from me where he knew I couldn't reach it. And not just the pudding, but the whipped cream too. Hid them wherever I couldn't reach them, even with a chair. Always on..."

"The top shelf," Bruce finished with her. The clinking of glass and metal from the fridge stopped and the woman poked her head out again, a bright smile lighting her features. "You know the old man well," she said approvingly.

"Alfred, you mean?" She nodded. He shrugged. "Just used to him," he replied, his soft smile forming before turning into a sort of grimace. "Do you work here?"

She shook her head fervently, her curls bouncing erratically around her face. "Do you live here?" She asked with her tongue between her teeth as she unsuccessfully tried to keep the smile off her face.

Raising his eyebrows at her, he replied. "Yeah."

"There you are, you little wench! I told you not to move!" Alfred seemed to have materialized in the doorway.

As he spoke, the girl jumped, letting out a squeak. The unfortunate jar of pickles slipped out of her hand and crashed to the floor. The sound of breaking glass pierced the kitchen, and pickle juice splattered the floors and counters, as well as the girl's black, ruffled skirt. "Alfred!" She complained. "Look what you made me do!"

She said this at the same time that Alfred exclaimed, "Now, just look at what you've done!"

"Yuck!" She ignored Alfred, picked up the closest kitchen mitt and started wiping the pickle juice from her legs.

Alfred let out a heavy sigh and headed towards the refrigerator. "Gabrielle Thompkins, what in the world are you doing with that oven glove?"

Bruce had been watching the spectacle with a spark of amusement in his eyes, but now he gave a short start of surprise at the sound of her name. Her last name in particular sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember why, so he watched as the woman, standing ankle deep in pickle juice, swatted Alfred away with the oven mitt before continuing to try and wash the sour smell out of her frilly yellow blouse.

She continued to ignore Alfred's commands. "Well, at least it was the pickles and not the cherries. As far as I'm concerned, pickles are just cucumbers soaked in evil anyway."

Bruce couldn't help it. He laughed loudly. For this, he received a bright smile from whom he supposed was named Gabrielle and a sharp look from his butler. He smirked. "Right. I'm going in for the meeting. Be back by nine." He told Alfred.

"Isn't that past your bedtime?" Gabrielle blurted out suddenly.

Bruce couldn't help but laugh again. What surprised him was that this was not the type of laugh he usually gave in public when he needed to patronize others. He genuine felt the wish to laugh this time. "Well, I'll just have to sneak in through the window."

The girl laughed delightedly, but Alfred made a sound of impatience. "Do not encourage her, Sir. Please."

"Sorry, Alfred." He grinned and tried to look contrite. "See you later."

He turned and headed down the hallway towards the South garage. As he walked away, he clearly heard the girl ask Alfred, "So, where's the pudding?" Bruce smile again almost unconsciously and shook his head as he finished buttoning his shirt cuffs.

"Right this way, Doctor Thompkins." Gabrielle turned to smile brightly at Alfred, as he handed his coat to the host.

"I will never get used to hearing others call you Doctor." Alfred said as they followed the maître d'.

Gabrielle laughed delightedly. The sound of her small outburst traveled through the crowded dining room of the quaint French restaurant, and a number of patrons looked up to glare at the interruption to their conversations, but most of them did double takes when the pretty girl simply smiled sweetly back at them. Gabrielle daintily smoothed the bottom of her skirt flat as she sat before taking an offered menu. "Merci, François." Flustered, the waiter offered a slight bow of his head before stumbling away.

"Must you torment the poor man every single time, Gabi?" Alfred scolded her.

She frowned, the skin between her eyebrows creasing. "That's not fair, Alfred. If he wants to take me out, all he has to do is ask." Alfred muttered something under his breath, but Gabi caught what it was anyway. "I am _not_ intimidating. Au contraire, I am inviting."

Alfred shook his head but decided to leave the conversation alone where it was, for it could continue into the next week. "Shall you be having the filet mignon again?" He asked wearily.

"Mais, oui!" She responded enthusiastically.

He sighed. "You know I don't believe you eat with very ladylike behavior," He said disapprovingly.

Gabi's smile brightened. "Did you ever stop to consider that might be why I do it? Anyway," she changed the subject rapidly, "I couldn't possibly eat a thing today what with losing my home and all."

Alfred sighed again, this time in serious contemplation and looked again at the front page of _The Gotham Times_ which depicted a burning building. "That's right. What shall we do with you?"

Gabi crossed her ankles neatly and shrugged. Tables away, a young man dining with his family kept glancing her way every few moments, but she took no notice. Instead she pouted in Alfred's direction. "Don't look at me like that. _I_ didn't set the apartment building on fire."

He narrowed his eyes at her and spoke sternly. "You know what, Gabrielle? I wouldn't be an ounce surprised if it _was_ you who did this. I don't know anyone else who managed to set their own sweater on fire playing with matches."

"That was one time!" She protested, and Alfred couldn't help but chuckle at the look of innocence she attempted.

"I suppose it won't hurt for you to stay at Master Wayne's penthouse in the city until we can find you more long term accommodations."

"Are you sure?" Gabi asked, eyes wide.

Alfred scoffed. "Well, it isn't Gabrielle proof, but it is insured."

Too happy with the good news, Gabi ignored the gibe. "Thank you, Al!" It was at that moment that the waiter appeared to take their orders, and Gabi immediately began to chat happily with the newly flustered man, so Gabi didn't hear when Alfred muttered, "Please do not call me that."

Deep within the city, far from the warm and luxurious restaurants of uptown Gotham, the streets teemed with the usual crime and despair. As usual, however, it all occurred in the shadows. For a patrolling cop to actually apprehend a criminal was rare. Donny Antonelli knew this and so it was with quite the swagger that he left his decrepit apartment building and a half beaten to death wife. Confident (too confident some might say), he made his way over towards Crime Alley. It was 10:35 p.m., and he was almost late for his fix. He would have, at that moment, quickened his pace in order to be on time had a huge shadow not suddenly blocked the already dim street lights. Given a chance, Donny would have screamed. Loudly.

As it was, a certain bat man (we'll call him Batman) had his own plans. He knocked the man nearly unconscious to the ground. Seeing the dazed look in the man's narrowed eyes, Batman knew he was almost out, so he did the most reasonable thing and grabbed a handful of the man's hair painfully. The best the man could do was moan. "If you do that to your wife again, you'll wish I was this easy on you next time," Batman growled menacingly. The man trembled in fear and was grateful when the second blow from a Kevlar-covered fist arrived to knock him out. Batman stood a second longer glaring down at the unmoving figure before taking out his grappling gun. Before he could point it towards the nearest roof top, he heard an intake of sharp breath.

"Well, well, well. What luck." An ominous voice broke the dark silence of the night. The fiery missiles were the last thing Batman expected. Three sharp and thick diamond-shaped knives flew through the air and pierced the first layer of the Kevlar. The pieces of metal were engulfed in blue-green flames. Not wasting a moment, Batman shot his gun towards a fire escape and soared upwards. As he landed, he activated the night vision within the cowl. The shadows disappeared to reveal the filthy streets and buildings but nothing else. It was almost as if no one had been there, but the intense heat he was beginning to feel in his chest reminded him that he had not just imagined things. He growled softly and tried to use the sharp fins on his armored gloves to get the knives out, but they stuck stubbornly to the suit. He pulled the coolant from his belt that he'd acquired from Fox after the Scarecrow Fire incident and doused the burning knives, but the flames only sputtered slightly before burning on. His skin beneath the insulation suit below was beginning to feel the heat. Painfully. Realizing the knives were not going to come out easy or the fire burn out quickly, Batman made a split second decision and peeled off the first layer of Kevlar. He almost wasn't able to get it off, as the knives had pierced through it and almost into the second layer.

He would have to travel through the night air to the closest place he could go to store the burning suit until he could take it to Fox in the morning.

Bruce shut the hidden door in the wall behind him. He stood for a second simply to admire how seamless the door actually was. Without prior knowledge, there was no way to know the room was back there. Even x-ray equipment wouldn't work, as these particular inner walls were lead-lined, which usually wasn't a problem when you didn't plan on licking the marble. At a sharp noise from somewhere further within the penthouse, Bruce started and turned. He had entered the hidden room through the roof. If there was someone within the penthouse, he couldn't have known until now. Still, he wasn't worried. He was Batman's alter ego.

He exited the bedroom and stalked virtually silently down the pitch black hallway towards the light emanating from the living area. Bruce nearly didn't breathe as he listened for more sound. A glass clinked. The sound had traveled from the kitchen. Knowing that a corner had to be rounded for him to be seen from the kitchen, he quietly slipped into the dining room and stalked panther-like toward the bright kitchen. It didn't matter whether the person inside was dangerous. He wouldn't risk his mask. He would simply remain invisible. Listening to the noises and analyzing them, Bruce decided the kitchen's occupant must be too occupied to notice if, say, someone stuck their head around the corner for a split second. He continued to do so and pulled his head back swiftly in confusion. Why was there a curly-haired rubber duck pajama-wearing woman in his penthouse kitchen?

For a crazy moment, he remembered Alfred's little friend from earlier and wondered if it could be her. This seeming the most likely possibility, his brain finally allowed him to make the identical connection between this woman's hair and the hair of the other, which were, in fact, one and the same. What she happened to be doing there rifling through another refrigerator of his was a mystery yet to be solved. Determined to do just that, he straightened up and rounded the corner. She was still busy shoving plastic packages and glass jars from side to side, seemingly looking for something. He stood in the doorway and crossed his arms. Just as she shifted backwards, a jar in her hand, he cleared his throat. She screeched shrilly and the jar tumbled from her fingers, crashing to the floor in a splendid display of flying shards of glass and tumbling red fruit. _Déjà vu_, Bruce thought dryly in mild annoyance and renewed amusement.

She was staring at him with wide eyes. "Mr. Wayne!"

"Yeah," he acknowledged with a curt nod.

His response seemed to do it for her and her startled expression relaxed into a mischievous smile. "We _have got_ to stop meeting this way."

"You mean where I walk in on you going through my refrigerator, and you dropping my lunch?" He managed not to smile, but the twinkle in his eye told her he wasn't being as stern as he was trying to sound.

"No." She seemed indignant. "I mean where you interrupt me foraging for food through your refrigerator and subsequently make me get the food I was intending to eat all over my clothes."

"To set the record straight, Alfred surprised you the first time."

She frowned for a split second, then smiled. "Yes, but I wasn't intending to eat the pickles. Now, these delicious cherries were about to be my midnight snack, and you killed them."

It was Bruce's turn to frown. "You were going to eat them." He answered defensively. "Either way, they would have…died." He paused, seeming to realize for the first time the kind of conversation he seemed to be holding. He sighed. She smiled triumphantly. "It's Gabrielle, right?"

"God, no," She laughed softly. "It's Gabrielle when I'm in trouble. Otherwise, it's just Gabi."

"Well, then, Gabrielle…" His lips twitched as she crossed her arms. "If it doesn't sound too rude to ask, what exactly are you doing in my apartment?"

She looked around with amazement. "You call _this_ an apartment."

"What do _you_ call it?" He asked exasperatedly.

She rolled her eyes and shrugged as if the answer was obvious. "A house on top of a skyscraper."

He smirked now, leaning one side against the kitchen counter to his right. "You still haven't answered my question."

"I know," she replied cheerfully, "but I will! Just as soon as you help me clean this mess you made."

"Normally, I'd decline, but I think I learned this afternoon that you're much better at making messes than cleaning them up."

"Observant, aren't you?" She teased.

"You have no idea."

"Well then, I'll just go change now that you've made a mess of my best pjs." Again, he couldn't help it. He chuckled and received a pleased smile from Gabi.

"Hmm," she spoke as she passed him. "If I'd known I was going to be having company, I would have dressed fancier." She grinned, fingering the white sports bra she wore over the white cotton pants covered with hundreds of rubber ducks.

"That's a good, general rule," he agreed.

"Bite me." She responded as she rounded the corner.

"Now or later?" He raised his voice, so she would hear him as she walked away.

"I'll get back to you on that," she shouted back.

Bruce smiled again and shook his head as he turned to find where in the world Alfred might keep the cleaning supplies. As he swept the shards of glass into the trash bin, he wondered why he was not more disturbed that a strange, there was no denying that, woman was staying in his home with the air of someone who ought to be there. It was Alfred, he decided. He trusted Alfred more than he trusted himself. If Alfred was friends with this woman, then he knew she wasn't a danger to him. As he wiped the last of the dead cherry remains from the refrigerator door, he began to wonder just how much his old butler had to do with this entire situation.

He tossed the kitchen towel next to the trash bin and headed towards the dining room. As he did so, he heard her soft feet padding down the hallway towards his. This time, he was determined to get some answers. Still, when she spoke again, he wondered just how long it would take him to get those answers out of her: "So, what's all this aversion to pudding around here? First the old man, now you." Bruce sighed. Business first, he decided. Then pudding.

Gabi sat on the living room couch with her legs tucked beneath her. Bruce watched her intently as she spoke, focusing the most on her hands which flew around animatedly as she told her story. There was something about her demeanor which made it hard to frown. She seemed to be one of those rare persons that made those around them happy naturally. Bruce sat back with a sigh, resigned to that fact, and crossed his arms when she finished.

"Did you have some kind of insurance on the apartment?" He asked in concern. As Bruce Wayne, business wasn't all he thought about, but sometimes it was necessary.

She had her hands folded now in her lap where they remained as she shook her head. "I was renting." She frowned now, and his eyes jumped to the furrowed skin between her brows. There was something appealing about her face when she did that. "But I lost most of my stuff. My banana socks, if you can believe it," she huffed indignantly.

He opened his mouth to speak but stopped himself, then opened it again. "Banana socks?"

"Yeah," she nodded in concord. "They're exactly what they sound like."

He shook his head, unwilling to ask more. "So Alfred set you up here until you could find…more suitable accommodations?"

"Yes," she replied, her eyes wide with apology now. "And I'm truly sorry for the bother. I wouldn't have agreed to it, but there was nothing else to do except get a hotel but can you say bed bugs? I feel like such an intruder, especially since you were going stay here tonight. You know what? I can just sleep on the couch. I like couches. Couches are good."

Throughout her now one-sided conversation, he kept trying to interrupt to reassure her, but she didn't seem to hear him. Finally, he had raised a hand indicating she could stop, which she did momentarily. "It's no bother at all. Honestly. I just wish Alfred would have taken it upon himself to invite you to stay at the manor in the meantime. It's much more comfortable, and you wouldn't be so alone. Tomorrow, I'll have him come over and take you back."

Gabi's face softened as he spoke. "Oh, no. I couldn't. I'm sure I can find something tomorrow…"

"I insist," he replied softly, ending the brief argument.

A smile inched back onto her face. "Thanks, Mr. Wayne. You know, seeing you in the tabloids…you don't look so nice."

He smirked. "No?" She shook her head. "Well, I guess you can't believe everything you read." But as he said the words, he reflected on hers. And then he realized what was wrong and why something had been nagging on him since earlier that afternoon. He had let the act fall in her presence. As far as she knew, he was a completely different person than the one everyone else in society knew. Had she met him before and then again today, she would have thought he was a different twin brother of Bruce Wayne. He cursed at himself internally. There wasn't much to do about that now, however.

"Something you forgot to mention, Alfred?" Bruce asked in a tone of half annoyance, half amusement.

"I presume you're speaking about the strange girl you found sleeping in your apartment, Sir?"

It was two-thirty in the morning, but Bruce still had the patience for jokes. "If you want to be cryptic about it, yes. And she wasn't sleeping. She was eating."

Alfred tsked. Bruce was beginning to realize that, for Alfred, Gabrielle Thompkins and annoyance went hand-in-hand. "The maraschino cherries, isn't it? She finished them." He did not doubt this.

Bruce clicked a few buttons on his main keyboard, and a blowup of that morning's front page of the Gotham Times showed up on one of the screens. "If you count her breaking the bottle on the floor finishing them," he replied, now distracted. With barely a breath, he continued with a different thread. "They've got to be connected. This apartment fire took seven hours to put out. They're lucky it didn't spread to the other buildings." The picture clearly showed how close that had come to being.

"Lucky that Gotham has such a distinguished fire brigade is more like it." Alfred strode towards the table on which rested the first layer of Kevlar. One of the diamond-shaped knives had stopped burning, but the other two were still going strongly. Bruce had managed to collect a sample of the chemical they were doused in from the unlit knife; he was waiting until morning to have Mr. Fox analyze it. "However, your theory seems likely. Gotham has a new and notorious criminal, it would seem, Master Wayne."

"Let's not get our hopes up," Bruce replied sarcastically, as he scrolled through the article. The last picture depicted the final result of the unquenchable fire. The building was gone; left in its place was its skeleton, charcoal black. It was eerie.

Alfred leaned over his shoulder to get a closer look. He was distracted as well, though not for the same reasons. "It's strange."

"What is?"

"This isn't the first time Gabrielle has lost her home in a fire."

Bruce narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?" He nearly interrupted himself when he remembered something. "Her name." He said suddenly. "It's familiar."

Alfred spent a short, thoughtful look on his charge before turning back to the computer. "You remember her mother." There was a wistful tone to his statement, but Bruce didn't pursue. He knew that if Alfred meant to tell him something, he would get to it in good time.

Bruce watched as Alfred stepped over to a second keyboard and accessed the mainframe of _The Gotham Times'_ archives. He navigated his way to the advanced searched, but Bruce couldn't see what he typed in. A minute later, another old news article had replaced the recent one. The picture was strange. In a heap of burned rubbish stood a strange metallic box-like structure. A name jumped off the screen at him: Leslie Thompkins. In a rush, Bruce began to remember things from his childhood he'd as of late been repressing.

"She was a good woman," Alfred said in that same soft tone he rarely ever used. "A good friend."

"I remember," Bruce said quietly. And he did. Doctor Leslie Thompkins _had_ been a good friend of Alfred's; consequently, she had visited many times before and after the death of his parents. She had even helped him through some of the harder times afterwards. He remembered, and this he would never forget, the night his parents were murdered. Alfred had finally rescued him from the police station, but young Bruce didn't want to go home. There were too many memories, so Alfred took him somewhere he'd never been before: the house of Doctor Thompkins. He remembered only too well how much he'd grieved and the time he'd spent doing so in the kindly woman's arms. What he didn't remember was a daughter. "She had a child?" As he asked this, he finished reading the article. "Missing?" He asked.

"I had her. Naturally." Alfred told him. "I didn't even realize they were looking for her until after I'd enrolled her in school."

Bruce was surprised. He'd never known any of this. "Why didn't you ever introduce us?"

Alfred sighed, and there was deep meaning within the sound. He suddenly looked much older than he had a few minutes earlier. He took the chair across from Bruce, near the burning suit where his eyes rested distantly. "I tried to, Sir, but you were a damn stubborn child."

Bruce smiled uncertainly. "What do you mean?" He didn't remember even a mention of Gabrielle.

"The only other person you'd see outside of school, besides me, was Leslie. You refused, but we were very close to convincing you. Gabrielle, Leslie told me, would be very good for you. When she died, you didn't even want to hear about anyone else. And I didn't press the matter, even though, by then, I knew she'd be the best thing for you."

Bruce remembered this only vaguely, but he looked away to conceal the distant pain he felt. No, he didn't remember the specifics, but the pain was hardly forgettable. That was the messed up thing about memory: it had a tendency of holding on tightly and irrationally to the bad things while many of the good things were swept away. "Where is her father?" He asked, as a distraction.

"Leslie left him before Gabrielle was born and came to Gotham. Gabi never met him; in fact, she doesn't even know who he is. But if he _is_ still alive, he's probably sleeping, an activity I'm rather fond of myself." Alfred stood with a dry smile.

"Right," Bruce smiled apologetically."Sorry. Good night."

"Good night, Master Bruce."

Bruce turned back toward his array of computers with a distracted smile. "Oh, Alfred?"

"Sir?" He stopped halfway towards the elevator.

"You should know…I did invite Miss Thompkins to stay here at the mansion until she could find a place."

The silence was long and deafening enough to make Bruce turn and check on his butler. Alfred stood, frozen, starting at him in horror. "Do you hate me, Master Bruce?" He asked suddenly.

"Of course not, Alfred." Bruce was surprised.

"Then do you like to watch me cleaning up after others?"

"No…?" Bruce was confused.

"Then why in the world would you invite Gabrielle Thompkins over?"

Bruce's brow furrowed. "I figured it's what you would have done."

Alfred sighed in annoyance. "If it's what I would have done, Sir, then I would have done it already."

"True," Bruce agreed with a nod and a small smile. "But, in _my_ place, that's what you would have done. Besides, I thought she was like a niece to you or something."

Alfred snorted as he turned. "A toddler niece, maybe."

Bruce laughed softly as he watched the old man head off to bed.


End file.
